JPMorgan Chase explains in its collection’s mission, “ Art at Work reflects and aligns with the firm's 21st-century business principles and priorities: diversity, innovation, technology, sustainability, creativity, and excellence.” And the Tito administration saw the collection as a driver against fascism. Through this framework, the images diagram the intended function of these art collections in the post-WWII era where anti-Stalinist, socialism of Yugoslavia and capitalism of the United States were extolled. This new installation of photographs and 35mm slide projections document not only the artworks in the respective collections but the physical, interior context within which they existed and circulated.
#Intermission image series#
Pavlović’s photographic series “Collection/Kolekcija” examines the power dynamics deployed through the exhibition of art collections in two buildings that represent political and economic regimes-specifically the Palace of Federation, the former executive branch building of Yugoslavia, in Belgrade and the former Chase Manhattan Bank in New York City. Recasting dominant, gendered narratives within art and material histories, Cox-Richard unveils how institutional value systems are often perpetuated by investment in consistency in art history over care, respect, credit, and the sharing of resources. Through her own act of material erosion and institutional excavation, she exposes the overlooked composite experiences that make up cultural legacies-their material baggage. Quasi-artifacts are points of departure like classical statues of female bodies in museum education departments to the site preservation of events considered part of Land Art and its presumed authors. And documentation-oriented and found objects like archival images and a semi-truck rear view mirror quietly trace personal journeys, while prominently cultivating new versions of common artistic narratives. Her concrete sculptures, reminiscent of fractured sidewalks, are made of aggregate materials often collected from sites of their intended exhibition. In AICA Cox-Richard’s work draws from her ongoing interaction with materials that undergird canonical art and cultural histories.
Instead of defining a future of how or should art be exhibited, contextualized, and historicized what we can learn from these artists by asking: Upon what platforms are politics conveyed in exhibition of art and artifacts? Within what buildings? Maintained by what cultural constructs? It is from this pause and consideration we can approach the next act. Similarly, many contemporary art institutions are confronting the crumbling conventions upon which they were built and how recent crises will impact their futures. Shattered, re-composed and unbridled rearrangement of contexts and legacies are prevalent in the work and practices of the artists in AICA.
This exhibition is an extended intermission. It is an event that contains multiple trajectories and the possibility to construct new narrative arcs beyond the confines of the initial story. An intermission is an active pause in which the narrative presented can be examined and the audience can contemplate what is to come based on what has already played out. Active-Intermission-Composite-Artifact (AICA) i ncludes sculpture, video, and photography from Lily Cox-Richard, Vesna Pavlovi ć, Marina Pinsky and Jonathan Boutefeu.
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